


To Rise Above

by Burntuakrisp, POPP_Writing_Group



Series: Rescue Prime AU [5]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Conjunx Endura, Crossover, Episode: s02e10 What Lies Below, Episode: s02e11 What Rises Above, Nods at Burntuakrisp, Original Character(s), Other, RESCUE PRIME, Rewriting of Episodes, Transformers Spark Bonds, Vehicons instead of dinosaurs, good idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 13:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 10,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13812048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burntuakrisp/pseuds/Burntuakrisp, https://archiveofourown.org/users/POPP_Writing_Group/pseuds/POPP_Writing_Group
Summary: When the Rescue Bots discover a shard of Energon underneath their island, they ask Optimus Prime to come.  They are in no way prepared for what will await them as they journey below; something that will change all of their lives, and shake what they think they know to the core.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. . . this is where the crossover really starts kicking! I think this is the longest thing I've ever attempted to finish, so kudos to Burntuakrisp for asking me to do this. This first chapter starts off with some OC Vehicons (I couldn't resist-- they're just so darn CUTE) so if that's not your thing, feel free to skip it and wait for the second chapter. Also, this is going to loosely follow the events of the Rescue Bots episodes "What Lies Below" and "What Rises Above", so those may be helpful to watch, but not necessary.

7J-00-5E, known to his friends and his conjunx as Joe, stood at his station and worked.  Monitoring communications was the least exciting job the troops could be dealt on the roster, and Joe knew they were only given it so that Soundwave could take occasional breaks without fear of missing something.  

But today was different.  Today. . . he was on to something.

He patched in his audio receptors, dialed up the frequency, and listened.  A signal from an unguarded comm line?  Now-- if he could just wedge into the stream, he could. . . hear the conversation . . .  

If Soundwave had come across this, Joe thought sourly, he wouldn’t only be able to hear and track the conversation, he’d be able to find out the identities, functions, and batch numbers of the mecha having it.  But-- because Primus hated him for some reason, apparently-- Joe had found it first, and now the responsibility was  _ all his.   _

He delved back into the data stream.  Faintly, scraps of audio began to fade in, and Joe made sure to highlight the memory files the words went to.

_ “Opt--crzzch--rime--” _

Joe’s sensors flared.  The unguarded comm line was trying to contact the Prime?  Suddenly panicked at the possible importance of this conversation, he reached over and tapped the Vehicon at the station next to him-- known as K85-L4-YY, or in special instances, “that slagging glitch that I can’t believe I ever spark-bonded with”.  “Kelly,” he hissed, “patch in over here and listen!”

Kelly did so, and the two mecha listened together as the audio scraps gradually became more coherent.  

_ “Resc--scrrkksh-- ots--chhrch--” _

_ “Energo--krrhhkk--mine--” _

Kelly looked at Joe.  “Energon mine?” he whispered.  “Do we know where?”

“I haven’t traced the signal yet,” Joe said, hoping his conjunx understood the hinting tone.  Kelly did.  He reached over and began to tap at Joe’s keyboard.  Joe had lost track of how many times he’d had to ask Kelly to track something for him, mostly in subtle hints (well, he tried to be subtle, anyway) and jerks of his helm.  Kelly always ended up doing it.  

“Griffin Rock,” Kelly said finally.  

“Where?”

“I don’t. . . it’s on the map.  Some island.”

Joe looked.  “But there’s an Energon mine there!”

“And we’ll get the credit for telling Lord Megatron,” Kelly added, looking around to make sure no other Vehicons-- or worse, Starscream-- could hear.

“If we hurry--”

“We can send a team and beat the Prime there--”

“Set up a mining operation--”

“With guards--”

“Like us!”

“We have to go tell Lord Megatron,” Kelly said, his plating nearly rattling with excitement.  He turned, went to alt-mode, and sped off down the corridor.  Joe followed suit, speeding a bit to match Kelly’s pace.


	2. Chapter 2

When the cave spiders came, Cody was sure it was the culmination of everything that had gone wrong that day.  Uncle Woodrow stealing the drill; the vehicle going haywire; the terrifying ride down to this strange cavern; the terror of realizing that there wasn’t a way back up; and now this.  Spiders.  Huge, white spiders.

_ Can’t get much worse than that. _

It was at times like these when he was  _ intensely  _ grateful, even more than usual, that he and his family were friends with giant, sentient, spider-crushing robots.  And he’d never been more happy to see Optimus in the short time he’d known the Prime. 

Quite honestly, one of the things that had crossed his mind as the drill careened wildly to the underground center of the island was  _ Optimus was coming to see us and I’ll  _ miss  _ it if I end up dying down here!   _ That was followed by several reassurances to himself that he wasn’t going to die.  That he was on an emergency team.  That he could handle situations like this.  

And he  _ had  _ handled it.  He’d gotten the drill to stop, and he’d gotten himself and his uncle out, and he hadn’t died.  

And now the bots were smashing the spiders.  The day was certainly taking a turn for the better.

Explaining to Uncle Woodrow about the Bots was. . . interesting, to say the least.  His uncle’s face lit up nearly brighter than the Energon crystal that shone from behind them.  Just watching him made Cody feel better about letting out their biggest secret.

_ Maybe things are finally turning around,  _ he thought, watching Optimus try to explain things from his towering height.

As if in ironic response to his thoughts, a muffled  _ crack  _ rang out, followed by a ground-shaking sound reminiscent of an explosion.  Before the last echoes of the noise had faded, Dad was ordering, “Team, into your bots!  Woodrow, come!”  He left the decision of which bot Cody should choose to him, instead stuffing Uncle Woodrow into the passenger seat of Chase’s alt mode.  Cody deliberated for a panicked instant, and then dived for Chase’s back seat-- his entire decision process was  _ Dad.   _ His siblings got into their partners with practiced speed, and the Bots switched back to root mode as soon as they had.

“Optimus, any idea what caused that?” Dad asked.  Cody could see, over Uncle Woodrow’s shoulder, the large, red-and-blue Prime frowning in consternation.  

“I do not like to think of the implications,” he said, “but it sounds like a Decepticon mining drill.”

“Sorry, a  _ what  _ now?” Kade snapped.

“Decepticons?” Heatwave said, taking a step toward Optimus.

“I believe we must consider the possibility that somehow, the Decepticons have reached the Energon mine before us,” Optimus said heavily.  

“Well, let’s get ‘em, then!” Heatwave said, banging his fist into his other hand.  Cody felt Chase’s engine rumble uncomfortably.

“Our first priority needs to be getting the humans to safety,” Optimus said firmly.  “If there are, indeed, Decepticons inside this mountain--”

“Wait,” Dani interrupted.  “I mean. . . Optimus, sir, what do you mean by  _ Decepticons?” _

Optimus hesitated, the most disturbed expression that Cody had ever seen on his face.  “I. . . did not want to. . .” he said, but was interrupted by another  _ crack  _ and the ground the Bots stood on shaking with the following rumbling explosion.  Dad barely had time to shout, “Hold on!” before the ground fell away beneath Chase.  Cody’s stomach dropped, and he reflexively grabbed the seat in front of him.  As Chase fell, Cody could see, for a brief moment out of the front window, all of the other Bots and Optimus falling through different sinkholes.  Then his attention was diverted to the situation they were currently in, and as Chase struggled to control himself in free fall, Cody found his voice betraying him with a scream of terror.


	3. Chapter 3

Kade’s heart readings were off the  _ chart,  _ his tiny human hands gripping Heatwave’s steering wheel as if that alone could stop their rapid slide into the suddenly gaping hole.  He was also yelling something, but after a moment Heatwave determined that it was only normal human declarations of fear, delegated one audio sensor to monitor him in case he said something actually  _ useful,  _ and blocked him out.

Optimus was sliding next to him, his pedes digging into the slippery, gravel-coated slope, grunting with the effort of trying to slow their fall.

. . . _ Their  _ fall, Heatwave realized.  The Prime had a servo pressed against his chassis in a desperately protective way.

“I can see the bottom!” he yelled.

“We must slow our descent,” Optimus growled out, “or your human partner will not survive the landing!”

_ Oh.   _ Instinctively, Heatwave tightened the seatbelt around Kade.  As annoying as his partner could be, that was definitely not a fate he wished on him.

Suddenly, Optimus triggered a transformation sequence in his arm that Heatwave had never seen before; a large vibroblade.  The Prime rolled over so that he was sliding on his abdominal and chest plating and ordered, “Grab on to me!”

Heatwave did so, wrapping his servos around the Prime’s other arm.  Optimus stabbed the vibroblade into the dirt slope, carving a massive furrow as his and Heatwave’s weight pulled the blade through relentlessly.  The Prime snarled aloud, digging the blade deeper into the earth.

Gradually, their fall slowed.  Turning, Heatwave blasted his water cannons against the approaching bottom, slowing it even more.  As they reached the end, he could not control a relieved ex-vent as he ran a scan on Kade’s vitals and found them all functioning.

Unfortunately, his voice was also functioning quite well, and Heatwave bit back a groan as his partner began demonstrating that.

 

                                     ------------------------------------------

 

Blades didn’t like falling.  It was not fun.  It was  _ scary.   _ It was worse than flying.

So, in his  _ defense,  _ you could hardly--  _ hardly blame  _ him for freaking out and forgetting that he had a _flying_ alt mode before Dani screamed it at him for the third time.  It wasn’t his  _ fault.   _ And besides, once he’d  _ remembered,  _ he’d saved Boulder.  Boulder and Graham.  

The green bot was yelling up at him from his perch on Blades’ hook.  “I can see a tunnel below!”

“We don’t want to go  _ below!”  _ Blades explained, nervous about the possibility that everyone else did, indeed, want to go below.  “We want to go back  _ up.   _ Right?”

There was a short pause while Boulder, presumably, talked to Graham.  Then the bulldozer called up again, “There’s a blue light coming from the tunnel!  We think it may be Energon!”

“Energon?” Dani repeated.  “There could be more?”

“Optimus talked about a mine!  We should go check it out,” Boulder shouted.  “For Optimus,” he added, looking abominably hopeful and earnest.

“But. . . but. . .” Blades stammered, trying to convey the benefits of going back up to where there  _ weren’t  _ cramped, underground tunnels.  

“Come on, Blades,” Dani cajoled.

Blades  _ really  _ didn’t want to go further into the tunnels.  He didn’t  _ want  _ to.

“Fine,” he sighed, huffing hot air through his cockpit vents to let Dani know how unhappy he was with this situation, and began flying lower.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no, I made myself sad. . .

 

Thankfully, the sinkhole Chase had fallen through was relatively small, and his passengers suffered no more than a rather hard jolt when he landed.  

Charlie rubbed his head-- it had banged against Chase’s interior-- and turned around in his seat, searching for his son.  Cody was holding on to the back of Woodrow’s headrest, his face frozen in delayed fear.  Charlie had heard Cody’s scream as they fell, and it had taken all of his self-control not not throw common sense to the wind and climb back there to fight off whatever it was that had caused that sound.  It took him back to when Cody was only a baby, tiny and new in the crib next to his bed, crying in the middle of the night for food or simply to be held.  There hadn’t been a mother to feed and hold Cody then-- only Charlie, his hands clumsy from lack of sleep, pressing the bottle to his son’s mouth and singing to him softly in the dark of the kitchen until he fell asleep in Charlie’s arms.

The slight tingling as Chase scanned his vital signs pulled him out of his memories.  Sitting up, he looked to the side and checked Woodrow over-- briefly, he knew Chase would alert him if his brother had sustained any injuries-- and asked, “Any idea where we are, Chase?”

“I’m afraid not, Chief,” his partner’s voice answered.  “All I can tell is that we seem to have fallen into some sort of catacomb of tunnels.”

Charlie tried to look out through Chase’s chestplates.  He could see the vague outlines of tunnels, but he was too high up to tell for sure.  “Can you let us out, please?”

“Of course,” Chase said, and folded down to vehicle mode.  Next to Charlie, Woodrow let out a compulsive “Whoa,” and grabbed his armrests.  Charlie patted him on the shoulder and got out.  

As Woodrow climbed out and helped Cody, Chase transformed back to bot mode.

“Will you shine your lights on those tunnels?” Charlie called.  With any luck, they could try and find the rest of the team.  It was their best bet.

Chase turned on his headlights.  Charlie peered into the openings of the tunnels, realizing that they looked basically the same and that they’d have to randomly choose one.  He’d known that, but he hated not having a reason for what he did.

“We could split up,” Woodrow suggested from behind him.

Charlie cursed inwardly, turned around, and snapped, “No.  That’s the  _ worst  _ thing we could do.  We just have to  _ pick  _ one.”

“How about that one?” Cody said, gesturing at a tunnel that was rather higher than the rest.  “Chase can fit in it.”

“It’s as good as any,” Woodrow said.

“Chief?” Chase said, cocking his helm to the side and waiting for Charlie’s decision.

Charlie sighed.  Leadership was the worst burden he’d ever chosen to bear.  “Let’s go in that one.”

 

__________________________________________________

 

The human was angry.  Or scared.  Perhaps both.  Optimus hadn’t been around Kade Burns much, but he was getting plenty of experience now.  The young man was very. . . vocal.  More so than Agent Fowler.

But Optimus tried to be understanding, especially given the half-stifled embarrassment and frustration radiating from Heatwave’s EM field.  He did not want Heatwave to be angry at his human friend on Optimus’ behalf.

“Perhaps you would like to let your partner out?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Heatwave said quickly, transforming down to alt-mode and swinging open his door.  Kade Burns stumbled out, dropped to his knees, and. . .

Hmmm.  Perhaps this was the organic equivalent of purging your tanks.  Optimus ran a quick scan on the human’s vitals, determined that he was not severely ill, and crouched down so as to be on a better level with him.

“Are you. . . all right?” he asked.  

Heatwave went back to root form and shook his helm, ex-venting.  “The humans call it  _ puking.   _ At least, Kade does.  I think he’s fine.”

“M’all right,” the human choked.  “Jus’ need a. . .” He gagged again.

“While Kade’s doing. . . that,” Heatwave said, and Optimus stood, wincing as his leg cables strained-- he was used to his own human friends being on eye level or so on railings, and hadn’t had to bend down like that for some time-- “We should try and figure out a way to get out of here.”

“There seems to be a tunnel of some sort leading out of this place,” Optimus said.  As Heatwave turned to look, Optimus realized that he had never transformed his arm back from the vibroblade.  Dusting it off, he slid it back in and flexed his servo as it came out.

Heatwave glanced at him, then at the long furrow they’d gouged in the dirt on the way down.  “Optimus, you said there may be. . . Decepticons in the mountain?”

Optimus felt a great, sinking despair in his spark.  He had tried so hard to protect Sigma 17 from the war.  He’d kept them secret from his own team for as long as he could, monitored communications, carefully not told them anything they didn’t need to know.  And now. . . and now the war had found them anyway.

He remembered his words to Bumblebee.   _ They do not deserve a place in this war.   _ They still did not deserve one.  But it looked like they would get one now.  And Optimus could not protect them this time.  

He ex-vented and shook his helm at Heatwave, indicating that they would speak of it later.  For now, they would follow the tunnel, wherever it might lead them.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pointless chapter is pointless. . .

It  _ was  _ an Energon mine-- if the myriad jutting crystals that emanated blue light were anything to go by.  They looked like bigger versions of the one the Bots and Optimus had found. Graham had seen the Bots inject syringes of liquid of the same bluish hue into their frames, and once, he had come downstairs to find them each tipping cubes of the stuff into their mouths.   _ High grade energon,  _ Boulder had explained then.   _ A special stash we had saved in the Sigma.  Just to celebrate. _

“Whoa,” he heard Dani say from beside him, climbing out of Blades.  “It’s beautiful.”

Huh.  It  _ was  _ pretty.  But that wasn’t what they needed to be focusing on right now.  

“Boulder,” he said, “if we go back the way we came, can Blades fly us out of here?”  Maybe they could take some crystals and go find the others.

His partner turned and surveyed the helicopter thoughtfully.  Blades blinked at him. “Maybe. But we still have to find a way to harvest some of this Energon.”

“Can you use your sonar imaging to tell where the team is?”

Boulder folded down to bulldozer mode.  “Sure. Let me find a wall and. . .”

As Graham turned to watch his partner begin to lift up the front end of his alt-mode, a familiar-sounding  _ crack  _ rang into his ears, and the engineer in him remembered it instantly.

_ Oh no. _

“Get down!” he yelled at Dani and Blades, jumping for Boulder’s door.  The earth-shaking rumble followed not an instant sooner than he had scrambled inside, vibrating the ground _ and  _ Boulder.  Graham was sure he felt his brain shaking in his head, and he pressed his hands over his temples reflexively.  This was much more intense than what had caused the sinkholes. It went on for what seemed like forever-- 

When it had stopped, Graham found himself blinking intensely to chase away the shiny, blurry vision that he had for some reason. He took his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands.  “Ow,” he said, and meant it. His vision came back in patches, but it came back.

“Ow,” he repeated.

“Are you okay?”  Oh, this was Boulder.  Boulder, still in vehicle mode.  He should probably get out. 

“I’m okay,” he said.  He got out.

“Graham!”  Dani. This was Dani.  “Graham, are you--”

“Okay,” he repeated.  

Boulder was a robot again-- weird-- and came over to him.  He felt tingly for some reason.  _ Weird. _

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Boulder was saying.  “I scanned him and his vitals are fine.”

“Let me try,” Blades said.

“Try what?” Dani asked.

Graham felt the tingly sensation again.   _ Weird.   _ “I was a sort-of medic for a little while on Cybertron,” Blades offered.

“A medic for Bots, though, Blades,” Boulder said.

“I can still detect neural firings and stuff,” Blades said.  “My scanners are more refined. Here-- look at this, Boulder.”

Graham’s eyes must have  _ really  _ been not working, because he didn’t see Blades give Boulder anything.  Boulder nodded, saying, “Ah,” like he had just understood something.

Graham was thankful that Dani voiced the confusion for him.  “What do you mean? What did you show him?”

“Oh-- a file,” Blades said.  “You guys don’t have processors with data storage, do you?”

“No, but you  _ do?”  _ Dani said incredulously.  “How much? Like five hundred gigabytes or something?  I’ve been wasting money upgrading my phone.”

“I’m not a phone!”

“Okay,” Boulder said.  “What are you going to do for him, Blades?”

“Oh,” Blades said.  “I don’t-- know  _ that  _ much about human biology--”

“Come on, Blades, please,” Dani interrupted.  “Just try?”

“Okay,” Blades said.  “Okay. Okay. Ah, Boulder, can you make a-- a very small sonar wave-- thingie from your hands or something?”

“Because of the--”

“Displacement of the vibrations, yes.”

“Well, I’m not pretending to understand that,” Dani said, “but whatever you guys are gonna do, we better do it fast.”

“Alright,” Boulder sighed.  “I’ll try it, Blades.”

Graham saw his partner reach out a finger toward Graham’s head, blinked at it, and managed a mumbled “What?” before a seemingly invisible force struck his brain over and over, and he blacked out.

He came back to three worried faces; Blades wringing his hands together, Dani biting her lip as she shook his shoulder, and Boulder, his optics sparking with panic, holding a hand on Graham’s torso.

“Hey, guys,” he managed.

“Thank Primus you’re not dead,” Boulder blurted.  “I thought--”

“You’re not dead,” Dani said firmly.  “Okay, answer me these questions. What’s your name?”

“Graham Kasey Burns.”

“How old are you?

“Twenty-two.”

“Who are they?” Dani pointed at Boulder and Blades.

“Blades, Boulder; Rescue Bots,” Graham recited.  “Can I. . . get up now?”

“Oh,” Boulder said, lifting his hand up.  Graham took Dani’s hand and got to his feet.

“So. . . what happened?” he asked.  

Dani glanced at Boulder, who said, “The sound that caused the sinkhole happened again.  You were inside me when it did, and I think the vibrations may have. . . well, I don’t know how to explain it, but you were really disoriented.  I hit you with a little. . . little sonar wave.” He looked slightly guilty. “But you’re okay, right?”

“I guess I am.”  He rubbed the side of his head.  “So. . . do we have any idea what’s causing that?”

“The rumble?” Dani said.

“Yeah.  Didn’t Optimus say he knew what it was?”

“He said it sounded like ‘a Decepticon mining drill’,” Dani said immediately.  “But he didn’t tell us what a ‘Decepticon’ was.”

There was a creak, and a thump.  Graham and Dani turned to look at Boulder, who had collapsed on the ground.  The bulldozer was vibrating, very slightly, a trick of his engine that Graham had learned meant that his partner was anxious or uncomfortable.

“Boulder?” Blades said, very quietly.  “Your. . .”

“Oh no,” Boulder was saying.  “No, no, no. . .”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a chapter finished! Yay! (Short though. . . *sigh*)
> 
> Alternate title: I play around with Cybertronian biology and pretend I know how it works.

Cody had been right; the tunnel was large enough for Chase to walk in.  However, “walk” was quite different than “walk comfortably”. His helm kept scraping at the rough stone of the ceiling.  Still, it was better than trying to drive over the sharp and jagged rock floor in his alt-mode, so he supposed he had at least one thing to be happy about.

“Chase, will you try your comm again?” Chief called.  

He did, although he had little faith that it would work-- not after the last seven times he had tried it and gotten nothing but static.  The sound greeted him once more as he attempted to open up his team’s personal frequency.

“I’m afraid it still doesn’t work, Chief,” he said regretfully, watching his partner’s shoulders slump just the tiniest bit.

“Guys!” This was Cody, running back from where he’d gone ahead.  “I can see a light up ahead-- one of the tunnels.”

“Daylight?” Chief asked.

Cody shook his head.  “It’s. . . blue.”

Chase’s systems perked up.  Chief Burns voiced the thought that had immediately leapt into his processor.  “Chase, do you suppose it could be Energon?”

Chase hoped it was, but he didn’t want to race to conclusions.  “Let’s go see.”

“So, I don’t understand,” said Chief’s brother-- Woodrow, Chase remembered, feeling just a twinge of dislike, Uncle Woodrow-- as they began walking toward the tunnel Cody indicated.  “Is Energon, like, what you guys eat or somethin’?”

Chase’s traitorous processor managed a  _ Primus give me strength  _ before he firmly shut the offending thought down and admonished himself for being so. . . bothered.  Woodrow  _ was  _ Chief’s brother, after all.

_ Maybe that’s why you’re so annoyed,  _ another thought offered, and Chase disabled the finer points of his internal computations, hoping that would stave off the jealousy.  Turning to the man, he said, “These things are not easy to explain, but the easiest interpretation is that, yes, it is what we. . . eat, in a way.  It is what fuels us.”

His tone was a bit more robotic than normal, and Chase knew Chief had noticed-- if the strange look his partner gave him was anything to judge from.  Chase wondered if he should try and explain to him that this often happened when he turned off the less necessary systems of his processor, and resolved to save the conversation for a later date.

“Ah, like gasoline,” Woodrow was saying confidently, like he  _ understood.   _

Chase found himself clenching his servos, and disabled more of his computations.  

“The light’s just up ahead,” Cody called.  “It’s definitely blue.”

“Definitely blue,” Chief agreed.  “Chase, what do you think now? Is it Energon?”

It was, and Chase was pleased to say as much.  Or, as pleased as he could be with his finer neural systems turned off.

“It looks like a lot of it,” Cody added.  “Maybe a mine or something?”

“We should go and check it out!” Woodrow suggested excitedly.  “If it’s what you Cybernonians eat, then maybe that big guy’ll be happy that we got some.”

“Cybertronians,” Cody corrected gently.  Chase was thankful; it saved him the effort of trying to be polite.  

“Should we go check it out?” Chief asked him, interrupting his train of thought.  “Do you think it’s safe?”

Something pinged at the back of Chase’s processor in response to the question, a warning inside a memory file of some kind, but with his finer systems disabled, he couldn’t bring it totally into his perception.  He resolved to look at it later, once his computations had cycled back on, and replied, “I am sure that it is. In any case, the others may be there, and we can find them, at least.”

“Then let’s go!” Woodrow exclaimed.  He took off running toward the tunnel, Cody following close behind.

Chase ex-vented.  He detected Chief performing the human equivalent-- a  _ sigh--  _ and felt better.  Slightly.


	7. Chapter 7

“It’s a volcano,” Kade pronounced.  He turned in time to see Optimus blink at him--  _ blink?  Do they blink?  Is that the right word for it?--  _ in gentle confusion.  

“I apologize, Kade Burns,” the enormous robot rumbled-- and  _ ohhh gosh  _ that was an intimidating voice, everything about Optimus Prime was intimidating, why was he just noticing this now-- “I am afraid I do not understand.  According to the sources I know, are not Earth volcanoes filled with molten lava?”

“Yeah,” Heatwave added.  “I didn’t think the mountain was--”

“I didn’t mean ‘volcano’ in a literal sense,” Kade snapped, cutting off Heatwave.  “I just meant that it was the inside of the mountain, and it’s hollow, so. . . I dunno, it just seemed like the right word to use.”

The two Cybertronians leaned over the ledge and looked up at the long, tapering inside of the mountain, then down at the shadowy, empty depths of space below the ledge.  

Heatwave scoffed.  “Right word to use.  Okay. Well, if it’s not a fiery smelting pit of death, we can climb up it, right Optimus?”

“It stands to reason,” Optimus replied.  “Kade Burns, if you will get inside Heatwave?”

Heatwave was folding down into vehicle mode before Optimus had finished speaking.  Kade sighed, reached out his hand to open the door, and yelped as Heatwave swung it open and nearly knocked him on the head.  Muttering words that were entirely too descriptive, Kade climbed inside.

Heatwave muttered something right back at him as he transformed to bot mode, something that sounded suspiciously like “embarrassing little squishy slag-licker”, but Kade chose to ignore it in favor of smirking as Optimus gave Heatwave a disapproving look.  Obviously, the big bot didn’t approve of Heatwave’s language.

“So you’re going to climb up the inside of the mountain?” he asked, becoming aware that an embarrassed Heatwave wasn’t good news for anyone sitting inside him next to his vents, and trying to distract him.  “What about the others?”

“We are hoping to find a way to get out of the mountain,” Optimus replied.  “I will not leave your team in here alone, Kade Burns. This I promise. But I want to find a way for them to escape.”

“Escape?”  That sounded. . . strange.  “Why escape?”

Optimus sighed--  _ did they sigh?--  _ and said, “I believe there may be a danger inside this mountain that your team is in no way prepared to face.  My hope is that I can find them and get them away from here before they are forced to.”

“You need to tell me,” Heatwave said forcefully.  “Tell me, tell them-- what is going on?”

“Heatwave--”

“You said  _ Decepticons,  _ Optimus.  I need to know.  Is my team in danger?  Is my  _ family  _ in danger?”

There was a long pause.  Kade tried, unsuccessfully, to figure out what was going on.  

“Yes,” Optimus said finally.

“Yes,” Heatwave repeated.  “So, the war is not over.”

“No.”

_ “No,”  _ Heatwave hissed.  Kade could feel his engine vibrating faster.  “Our world, our  _ Cybertron,  _ is  _ gone, destroyed,  _ and you’re telling me it wasn’t  _ enough?!   _ The war followed us  _ here?” _

“And so did the Decepticons,” Optimus growled.  “Heatwave, your anger is warranted. I deserve whatever loss of faith in me you are feeling.  But we have no time to argue. We must save your team.”

Heatwave huffed.  “You’re. . . right.  You’re right. Let’s go.”

“The. . . mountain opens at the top,” Kade ventured. Optimus turned to look at him, and he swallowed as he continued, “I did a presentation in 11th grade.  The scientists designed it so that. . . no, ya know, I don’t know why. But I know there’s a switch or a lever inside that will open it.”

“Or a button,” Heatwave said, lifting his foot up.  

“Huh?” Kade said.  He looked down, trying to see what he could from Heatwave’s glass, and saw, as he had said, a small button.  “You stepped on a button without knowing what it did?!”

“First, I didn’t do it on purpose.  Second, it  _ is  _ doing something.  Look.”

“The mountain,” Optimus said.

Kade looked.  The top was slowly folding open, letting in sunlight.

“Well, that’s just great,” Heatwave said, in the special Heatwave voice that he saved for truly irritating situations-- at least, that’s what Kade thought.  “Even if it’s open, we can’t climb up there with the humans fast enough to stop them from starving! We don’t have any human food!”

“Hmm,” Optimus said.  “I believe I may have a plan, Heatwave.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Evil laughter* And now we return to my babies. . .

“This is _ awesome!”  _

If Kelly still had access to his mouth components-- which he hadn’t since the mass-reformatting-- he would have smiled at the excited tone in his conjunx’s voice.  As it was, he made do with an amused pulse of his EM field. Joe had been basking in the euphoria of being posted as guards in the Energon mine that they had discovered since Lord Megatron had granted them a cursory “well done” and assigned them the post.  He also hadn’t stopped hissing happy exclamations of disbelief in their good luck since then. 

They stood next to each other, watching the Vehicon miners carve off chunks of crystal, and Kelly lightly bumped Joe with his servo.  “Calm down,” he muttered. “Be professional, and we might get an assignment like this again.”  
“Okay, okay,” Joe said under his breath, but his field still buzzed irrepressibly. 

They resumed their positions, glancing around the mine as the miners worked and pretending that they weren’t bored.  Technically, they should have been on opposite ends of the mine, covering both entrances, but after seven joors of talking through comms, Joe had decided that he was sick and tired of that and left his post to come stand by his conjunx.  Kelly, of course, hadn’t shown that he was pleased in the slightest with Joe’s action, but he also hadn’t told him to go away, and Joe knew that what that meant.

“Kelly,” he was saying now, poking him, “when we get done with this, do you want to--”

“Wait,” Kelly said.  His audio receptors had been dialed up, and an unfamiliar sound was now feeding into them.  “Do you hear that?”

Joe tilted his helm to the side.  “Sounds like. . .”

“Voices.  I don’t recognize them.”

“It could be Autobots,” Joe said, and although he initiated his gun sequence, Kelly detected the brief fizz of fear in his field.  

“I don’t think so,” he said.  “They sound. . . off.”

Joe ex-vented and stood up straight.  “I. . . I’ll go check it out.”

“Wait.  I’ll come with you.”

Joe hesitated, glanced at the entrance where the noises had been coming from, and back at Kelly.  “Yeah. . . yeah, alright.”

As they moved forward together toward the open tunnel, Kelly’s audio receptors flared again, warning him of the voices that had been growing louder even since he’d begun noticing them.  

And then the owners of the voices came into view.

“Squishies?!” Joe whispered incredulously. 

“Humans,” Kelly corrected under his breath.  

“Fleshies.”

_ “Organics.” _

“Whatever!  They saw us!”

This was true.  The taller of the organics was tilting his head back to observe Joe and Kelly, tiny little squishy mouth open in an expression of disbelief.  

“Cyber. . . tronians?” Kelly distinctly heard him say.

“How does he know that?” Joe hissed.  “He’s got to be one of theirs. Look, the little one is the same size as the hacker.”

Kelly took a step toward the two, and said little one backpedaled.  “I don’t know!” he said, presumably to the larger one. “I don’t know them!”

“You’re probably right,” Kelly said to Joe.  “Alright, let’s take care of them.”

“Ugh, squishies give me the creeps,” Joe shuddered, but he reached out and grabbed hold of the bigger one.  Kelly ex-vented and snatched up the little one. 

“Ah-- Ow!” the one in Joe’s servo screamed.  “What-- What’re you doing?!”

“”They’re so  _ loud,”  _ Joe lamented.  He charged up his electro blaster and held it next to the human.  Kelly did the same, and his human let out a terrified gasp.

“Here’s hoping there’s no more organics today,” he said.  

Before he could release the firing mechanism, a voice shouted out, “Stop!”  It sounded so authoritative that Kelly automatically hesitated. He turned to see another organic running toward him, followed by a smallish, blue-and-white bot that charged ahead of the fleshling and put a servo out to hold him back.

Shock flashed through Kelly.  He didn’t recognize this mech.  It wasn’t one of the Prime’s team.  And his insignia was. . . strange.

_ ::Autobot?::  _ Joe commed him.

_ ::I don’t know!  He’s not in the database!:: _

“Let them go,” the strange mech said, his vocalizer fizzing with fear.  “Now.”

Kelly looked more closely at his insignia.  It  _ was  _ an Autobrand, but with two circles surrounding it in a manner he had not seen on any other Autobot.   _ ::I think he  _ is _ an Autobot.:: _

_ ::Search the insignia in your database,::  _ Joe commed.   _ ::I’ll handle this.:: _

Kelly nodded and stepped back, beginning to comb through the Decepticon records for any sign of the strange insignia.


	9. Chapter 9

 

Dani heard the scream first.  It echoed from all the way across the mine, short and bone-chilling and familiar.  Uncle Woodrow.

“Guys.  Guys!” she said, shaking Graham from where he was kneeling by Boulder and Blades, his hand on the shaking green bot.  “Did you hear that?”

Boulder lifted his head up.  “The--”

“Uncle Woodrow?” Graham said, standing.

“He’s in trouble!” Blades cried, pulling Boulder to his feet.  “It’s a cave-in!”

“No,” Boulder said, his eyes narrowing.  “It’s Decepticons.”

“Okay, can  _ someone  _ explain to me just what the  _ heck  _ Decepticons are?!” Dani bellowed, but Boulder was already transforming to vehicle mode, barking, “Get in!”

“Come on,” Blades said, and she turned to climb into his cockpit, growling in frustration.  As he lifted off, she saw Boulder take off across the mine, driving faster than she had ever seen him go.

“Tell me,” she said to Blades.

“Bad guys,” was Blades’ surprisingly laconic answer.  “I’m going to try and call Optimus.”

“Okay,” Dani said.  “Bad guys. I can handle bad guys.  But the comm didn’t work before, why would it work now?”

“Because I can detect his signal on the network now,” Blades said, as if that explained everything.  “Now shh. Blades to Optimus Prime!”

“I hear you, Blades,” came in Optimus’ voice, staticky and breaking up, but there.

“We need your help, Optimus.  There are Decepticons in the mine and--”

“The mine?” Optimus interrupted.  "Give me your coordinates."

"Transmitting them now," Blades said, and the comm fizzed as he, presumably, sent something.  "Where are you?"

"Heatwave, Kade Burns, and I are not far from you," Optimus' voice said.

“Optimus, I think Uncle Woodrow may be in trouble,” Dani shouted, opening her comm line.  “Can you get here soon?”

“I can,” Optimus said, and Dani felt some semblance of relief.  “Heatwave and I have found a way for you all to escape from here.  Be ready when I come.”

“Okay,” Blades said, and closed the comm channel.  “Dani--”

“Blades.”

“I don’t know what we’re going to find over there--”

“And I don’t know why you think I care.  Uncle Woodrow’s in trouble. We’re going to help him.”

“Please. . .” Blades’ voice was almost too quiet to hear.  “Please don’t die.”

“Die?!”

“Decepticons, Dani, they’re. . . they’re not like what we’re used to.”

“You need to tell me what’s going on, Blades.  Tell me now!”

But before Blades could speak, they came over a high patch of crystals and Dani saw what he had meant by "Decepticons".

Bad guys?  She could handle bad guys.  But. . . this?

________________________________________________

 

_ ::Rescue Bots!::  _ Kelly commed him.   _ ::They were supposed to be eradicated in the war, I don’t know what they’re doing here--:: _

_ ::Are they combatants?::  _ Joe sent, his focus never leaving the blue mech in front of him.  

_ ::They are not supposed to be.:: _

_ ::Good.::   _ Joe stepped toward the mech-- the Rescue Bot-- and held out the fleshie.  “You want him, Autobot? Come and get him.”

The mech’s dentae clenched, his optics wide.  “You are-- you are a Decepticon?”

“Proud to be one.”  Joe thumped the Deceptibrand on his chest with his free servo.  “And if this is one of the Prime’s little squishy  _ humans,  _ then I kill him right now.”

“No!” the other organic shouted, the one who had ordered them to stop.  “Don’t kill him!”

“Dad, help!” the little one in Kelly’s servo screamed.

“He’s not on Optimus’ team!” the Rescue Bot cried, stepping forward.  “He’s neutral. Both of them!”

Joe glanced at Kelly, unsure what to do.  But he had to keep up the tough, unrepentant Decepticon appearance, and so he deliberately squeezed the organic in his hand just a bit too hard.  It let out another scream. “Neutral? It’s a  _ human.   _ And you’re an Autobot.”  The mech glanced down at his insignia.  “You expect me to believe the Prime isn’t just waiting around the corner to attack the mine?”

“No,” came a voice that was all too familiar, and Joe turned to see a bolt of energy explode from the Prime’s electro-blaster.  

Time slowed down as it struck his chest, spreading agony throughout his frame, forcing him to drop the organic as the pain overwhelmed him.  He crashed to his backstruts. The last thing he heard was Kelly screaming his name, the last thought he had  _ I don’t want to die. _


	10. Chapter 10

 

Cody was dropped to the ground in nearly the same instant that Optimus shot the other robot.  The one which held him was running after the fallen one, shouting something, but Cody blocked out everything else as he scrambled frantically to his feet and ran to his dad, clinging to him in panicked fear.  His dad squeezed him almost unbearingly tight, running his hands over him, panting, “Are you all right? Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Cody managed, breathing hard.  The words made another thought jump into his mind, and he remembered, with a flash of horror--

“Uncle Woodrow!” came a shout, and Cody turned to see Graham jump out of Boulder and start running toward them.  Chase hurried toward where Uncle Woodrow lay on the ground, picked him up, and ran back toward the group.

“Blades, check him out,” Dani ordered--  _ Dani was here,  _ Cody thought in a dizzying blur of relief,  _ We’re all here, all back together--  _ jumping down from her partner’s cockpit.  Blades transformed and stepped toward Chase, holding out his hand and emitting a bluish-looking spread of light.  

“Ah--” Uncle Woodrow gasped, his face contorting.  

“His support structure-- these thingies,” Blades said, patting the part of his frame where ribs would go if he was human.  “They’re broken. He needs a repair.”

“Fast, please,” Uncle Woodrow moaned.

Cody stepped back, horrified, then glanced at Optimus, a thousand questions pounding through his mind.   _ What is happening?  Who are they? Why did they attack us? _

_ What didn’t you tell us? _

Optimus looked back at him, and his face, stern and hard and angry as it was, relaxed for just a moment into an expression that ached of regret and insecurity and self-doubt.  Cody stared at him, not wanting to say anything, but at the same time desperately hoping Optimus would explain  _ something,  _ tell Cody exactly  _ how  _ everything had gone so  _ wrong. _

But at that minute there came a groan from where the robot holding Uncle Woodrow had fallen, and Cody turned to see him slowly getting up from the ground, helped up by the one that held him.  Optimus’ eyes narrowed, and a mask slid across his mouth.

“Chief Burns,” he said, “take your family and go with Heatwave.  We have found a way for you to escape.”

Dad nodded sharply, and began herding everyone toward where Heatwave stood, Kade looking out through his window.  Cody hesitated, turning toward Optimus again.

“Optimus--” he said.

“Go, Cody Burns,” Optimus said softly.

“But--”

“Go!” the Prime repeated, turning away-- and Cody’s eyes widened in shock as he saw an enormous sword-looking thing appear from Optimus’ right hand and a terrifyingly large gun from the other.  Optimus-- Optimus was-- he had--

No.  Optimus was going to  _ protect  _ them.  

Cody turned and ran after his father.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I challenged myself to write an entire chapter with nothing but dialogue. . . let's hope it went well.

“I’m fine.”

“Joe--”

“I’m  _ fine.” _

“Your spark chamber won’t take another hit!”

“Then I won’t  _ let  _ it take another hit!”

“Don’t be  _ stupid,  _ it’s the  _ Prime--” _

“What?!  What, you want me to just accept that we’re going to die?”

“You just got shot!”

“And  _ you  _ let your fleshie go!”

“What was I going to do?   _ Not _ go and restart your frikkin’  _ spark?!” _

“You--  _ what?” _

“What, you think your scrap-afted excuse for a reformatted spark is strong enough to cycle itself back from an overcharge?”

“Kelly--”  

“It’s  _ not.” _

_ “Kelly--” _

“I gave you a frikkin’ jump-start, you overconfident slagger, so don’t you lie there and act all noble.  We’re in this together, and we are  _ not  _ going to die!”

“Fine.”

“And I-- what?”

“Fine.  Comm the miners.  We’re fighting.”

“They’re not soldier class--”

“They have tools.  If they can cut through an Energon crystal, they can be used as weapons.”

“Oh-- Okay.  Okay. So. . . we’re doing this.”

“We’re doing this.  Ow!”

“Are you-- Don’t try and get up  _ all at once,  _ you stupid--”

“Comm the miners, Kelly.”

“Comming them.  Oh, Primus below, he’s noticed us.”

“Shut up.  Shut  _ up.   _ He’s supposed to be reasonable--”

“You probably broke that organic, Joe!”

“What?”

“The way he screamed?  Humans are fragile.”

“So what?  It’s a fleshie.”

_ “I  _ know, but the Prime--”

“Scrap.  He’s not going to talk, is he?”

“That vibroblade that just came out?  I don’t think so.”

“Did you comm the miners?!”

“Yes.  Yes. They’re coming.”

“Good.  Good. Okay.  We’re fighting.  Ready?”

“I love you.”

“Shut up.  I love you too.   _ Ready?” _

“Ready.”


	12. Chapter 12

 

“Listen,” Heatwave said, trying to ignore the fluttering of fear inside his spark as his team looked at him, their faces scared and unsure and full of hesitant  _ trust,  _ trust in  _ him,  _ trust he wasn’t sure he could earn.  “Optimus has a plan to get us out of here.”

“We have to hurry,” Chief Burns interrupted.  “Woodrow needs a hospital, and fast.”

“Okay,” Heatwave said.  “Okay. This is the plan.  We have to block off the volcano-- we found a big rock-- and ignite the Energon in the mine in order to blow the rock off and up the volcano.”

“You want us to blow up the mine?” Boulder blurted.  

“Boulder, you know what Decepticons are capable of,” Heatwave snapped.  Immediately, he regretted his words as the green bot looked down, a hurt and angry look on his face.  Boulder’s relationship to his Decepticon brother was not something they spoke of often. But Heatwave didn’t have time to apologize.  They had to move.

“If we all work together, we can get it done,” he said, narrowing his optics.  

“What. . . about. . . those things?” Woodrow managed.

“Optimus is going to distract them.”  His spark turned inside him as he imagined leaving Optimus to fight off all the Decepticons inside the mine alone, but his Prime had ordered him, very specifically, not to join in the fight, to get the other Bots and the Burns family out.  And Heatwave had agreed. What could he do but agree? 

“He can fight them,” Cody said confidently.  “He’s Optimus Prime.”

Heatwave felt a great rush of thankfulness for Cody Burns, but he turned aside and began to walk toward the volcano.  “If Optimus is buying us time, we have to use it,” he growled. “Blades, Boulder, Chase-- get your partners in and help me roll the rock over the volcano opening.”

“Uncle Woodrow can go in Boulder,” Graham said.

“No,” Chase said, gently laying him on the ground.  “I’ve got him. Chief, if you would help him into my alt-mode?”

“Fine,” Heatwave said.  “Come on, we have to hurry.”

As the Bots began to move the large, flat rock into position-- Graham shouting instructions all the way-- Heatwave could hear, faintly, the sounds of battle from the mine, sounds of shouting and firing lasers and stomping feet.  He hated himself for abandoning Optimus, hated himself for being afraid. If he was honest with himself, he preferred this-- working with his team to escape-- over fighting enemies that he had thought didn’t exist anymore, enemies with weapons and blasters, enemies a good half-frame taller than him.  Even if Optimus needed him. And that admission-- even if he only thought it briefly to himself for one nanoklik-- filled him with more insecurity and anger than he had felt since the war.

_ As soon as this is done,  _ he thought,  _ as soon as we escape from here--  _ he banished the tentative  _ if  _ that crept into his processor--  _ Optimus needs to explain to my team.  To. . . to me. They need to know why this is happening. _

_ I need to know. _

_ Please. _


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made myself sad AGAIN

The vehicons were many, and they fought with an intensity that Optimus had rarely encountered from them.  At first, as he approached the two who stood before him, leaning on each other and holding out their blasters with a desperately determined air, he had had a moment of hesitance.  He considered appealing to them, offering them a way out.  _ These two,  _ the Matrix pulsed at him,  _ these two are bonded.   _ It was the same warning it had given him as he fought Skyquake.   _ Someone will mourn if he dies.   _ It did not forbid him from fighting-- and Skyquake  _ had _ died, despite Optimus’ efforts to urge him to abandon the fight-- but it told him, all the same, and the extra knowledge was an extra guilt as he found, once again, that he had failed.

_ These two are bonded.   _ Optimus hesitated.  He had to. Even the memory of Chief’s brother screaming as the mech squeezed him in his servo could not deter him.  

But in the instant that he did not fight, he was attacked on all sides by the miners, and the two guards were running at him and firing off blasters relentlessly at his helm, and he grunted and fell to his knees-- the miners’ tools cutting into his frame from everywhere, carving away plating and slicing Energon lines.  Five warnings flared on his HUD, warnings of Energon loss and iminent chestplating compromise and others all piling on top-- and all the while the Vehicons were pinning him down, the two bonded blasting away a steady path to his spark while the miners relentlessly hacked into him from myriad other places. Optimus’ pain sensors screamed alight all over his frame, attempting to drown out logic, rational thought, a plan to escape.

_ No,  _ he thought, a thought torn from the pain and the terror.   _ No.  I will not leave the humans and the Rescue bots to face Decepticons alone. _

_ I am Prime, and I need to face what I’ve done. _

And he stood.

He flung three miners away from him, freed his arm, and transformed it into his electro-blaster.  He fired at one that tried to target a main Energon line in his now-exposed neck cables, and the miner flew backwards into the cave wall.  Growling, Optimus unsheathed the vibroblade in his left servo, impaled two, and threw them to the ground.

He hurt, but he fought back, because he was Prime, because he  _ had  _ to.

“Stay down, you fraggin’--  _ Prime!”  _ screamed one of the guards, one of the bonded, except Optimus refused to listen to the warnings of the Matrix, because the bonded were going to hurt his Rescue Bots, and he could not allow that to happen.

He struck out viciously, wildly, tearing and beating and ripping until his blades were dripping blue and screams filled his audio receptors and broken frames fell around him.  He staggered, fell to one knee again as a miner lunged in and sliced the support cables in one leg. One of the warriors struck him across the helm, a hit that shook his processor until his vision was fuzzed with static, but he had no time to recover; he forced himself to lift his hands and deflect the blaster shots with his blades.  He struck out again and again, blindly, letting his instincts guide his slashes and strikes until he was free enough to stand.

“You-- will not-- harm the Rescue Bots!” he snarled, struggling to his pedes, snapped cable fraying and Energon leaking from a thousand places.  The two guards-- the only ones left-- staggered back, fear written in their postures. 

“I will give you one chance,” Optimus said, very quietly, “to leave.  Go back to Megatron, and never come back to Griffin Rock.”

There was silence for such a long time that Optimus began to wonder if they were going to accept his offer.  The two bonded stood with their heads down, not speaking.

The Prime realized that they were communicating through comms.  

______________________________________________

 

_ ::We can’t give in, Kelly.:: _

_ ::I didn’t want to.:: _

_ ::I’m. . . I’m glad we had time to be together.:: _

_ ::I will see you in the Allspark.:: _

_ ::Together, then?:: _

_ ::Together.:: _

_____________________________________________

 

They rushed at him, leaving him with no choice but to fight back.  And he did. 


	14. Chapter 14

“Heatwave,” Optimus’ voice crackled into the comms, and Boulder lifted his head.   _ “ _ Does your team have the blockade in place?”

“Yes, Optimus,” Heatwave answered.  Boulder nodded, although he knew Optimus couldn’t see-- he had just finished placing the last sustaining rock over the tunnels leading out.  “Should we send the explosives in?”

Before Optimus could respond, Cody shouted, “Guys, my hoverboard won’t work!  I can’t make it--”

“Aggh, it’s broken,” Graham said, shaking it angrily.  “We can send it a yard, maybe two, into the tunnel, and then. . . it’s not going to reach the mine.”

“Optimus,” Boulder said, pressing his finger to his comm and trying to block out the panic, “the hoverboard won’t work, the explosives won’t get to the mine--”

“I. . . will come and take it,” Optimus’ voice said, and Boulder couldn’t tell whether it was just the comm line breaking up, or if the Prime really  _ was  _ as horribly tired as his voice sounded.

“Optimus, you can’t,” Heatwave shouted.  “How are you going to get back in time with--”

“I will take it,” the Prime’s voice repeated.

“He says he can do it,” Boulder said to Heatwave, turning off his comm.  “He can. He’s Prime.”

Heatwave ex-vented.  “He says a lot of things, Boulder.”

“What do you mean?” Blades interjected.  “Optimus wouldn’t. . . I mean. . . Heatwave?”

“He didn’t tell us about the Decepticons,” Heatwave muttered.  “He didn’t tell us about the war not being over.”

“What?” Kade said, craning his head up from Heatwave’s glass.  “I don’t understand at  _ all  _ what you guys have been talking about for this whole--”

“Not now, Kade!” Heatwave barked.  

“I have a right to ask!” Kade yelled back.

“But now’s not a good time--” Boulder said, trying to exude calm at Heatwave in an attempt to get him to relax.

“Whatever it is, we’ll talk about it once we get back,” Chief Burns shouted at them from Chase’s alt-mode.  “We can’t afford to lose focus right now!”

“Understood, Chief,” Heatwave said, after a pause in which Boulder was halfway sure that his team leader would start yelling at Chief Burns himself.  

But then Optimus staggered in.

Limping, battered, so covered in Energon that his red color was nearly obscured by the glowing blue liquid, and with damage that would make a medibot give up his profession.

“Primus,” Boulder whispered.

“The. . . explosives?” the Prime managed.  

“O-Optimus,” Blades said, “you can’t--”

“Be ready for when they are set off,” Optimus said firmly.  He carefully took the hoverboard from Graham and inspected it.  “I will make it back in time.”

“Yes, sir,” Heatwave acquiesced grudgingly.  

“But Heatwave--” Boulder said, horrified.

“Just listen to him!” Heatwave bellowed.  “We need to take care of  _ our team!” _

“But--” Blades tried, and Heatwave threw up a servo, stopping the helicopter in his tracks.  Turning to Boulder, he growled, “Tell Optimus how to activate the explosives.”

“You-- you press the button,” Boulder said helplessly.  “Once you remove your finger, the bomb goes off.”

“Instantaneously?” Optimus asked.

“Y-yes.”

“I had planned on making the impact of the hoverboard release the button,” Graham put in, looking sick.  “Optimus, if you can’t get out of there in time--”

_ “You _ will escape nonetheless.”

“You can’t,” Dani said.  “Optimus, you can’t.”

“I must,” Optimus said, and Boulder barely had time to register that the Prime’s tone was the saddest he had ever heard it before Optimus had turned around and limped out.


	15. Chapter 15

 

_ Twenty steps. _

He hurt.  He  _ hurt.   _ He wanted Ratchet-- he wanted Megatronus-- no, not Megatronus-- he wanted help.  He didn’t want to be Prime.

He couldn’t think.

What had they  _ done _ to him?

_ Fifteen steps. _

Energon mine.  He needed to reach the center of the mine, where he could plant the explosives and ignite the crystals so that the Rescue Bots could escape.

But his leg cable was snapped--  _ how many times, Optimus, you need to take care of those cables of yours, they don’t sprout from the ground. . .  _ Ratchet’s voice.  Oh, he needed Ratchet.

_ Thirteen steps. _

There was no way to make his leg support him.

He made it support him anyway.

_ Ten steps. _

Bodies littered the ground.  Broken frames. Frames that  _ he  _ had broken, that  _ he  _ had offlined--

_ Primus,  _ he hated himself.

He hated the war.

Hated his pain, especially.  His pain and his weakness and his inability to protect the only ones that relied on him.  

_ Seven steps. _

He knew he should be formulating a plan to escape, once he’d released the trigger.   _ Instantaneously.   _ But he couldn’t.  He couldn’t think.  He could only walk, one pede in front of another in a sickeningly mundane rhythm.

_ Five steps.   _

He pushed aside all thoughts except  _ reach the Energon crystals.  _

_ Two steps. _

He lunged forward with a groan of pain and shoved the hoverboard with the explosives into the large patch of crystals.  He pressed the button with a savage twist of his thumb, and turned, transforming mid-escape and attempting to get clear of the impeding blast.  He accelerated, hearing his transformation seams straining with the effort to keep him in alt-mode. 

Behind him, the mine exploded.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everyone who left kind comments-- they really inspired me to keep working on this!!

“Everyone on?” Charlie shouted.

A chorus of affirmatives answered him, varying in intensity.  Chase simply nodded, pulsing his lights. Charlie knew that he was attempting to stay as still as possible so that Woodrow wouldn’t shift in the backseat and injure himself further.  

“Hold on,” he said, climbing into Blade’s vehicle mode with Dani.  “If Optimus can make it back in time--”

“He will,” Dani said firmly.

“He will,” Blades said, less firmly.

“Okay.  When Optimus gets back,” Charlie amended, “the blast will be right behind him.  We have to be ready to either help him get on the rock, or. . .”

“Or?” Heatwave said.

“Or make sure Chase stays on the rock so he can get Woodrow and Cody out,” Charlie finished.  “That’s the priority.”

“But. . .  _ all _ of us escaping is a priority too. . . right?” Blades said.

Before anyone could answer, an unmistakable noise-- an explosion-- flooded the open chamber, coming from the tunnel leading toward the mine, and there was no time for any reluctance.  

 

___________________________________________

He could see the Rescue Bots.  All safe, all together on the rock, waiting for the blast he had started that would take them to safety.  

The knowledge made him just a little more content in the reality he found himself in-- which was that he could feel the flames licking at the back of his alt-mode, and that he knew he was not fast enough to outrun them.

But the Rescue Bots were safe.

The Rescue Bots and the humans were safe.

He could die, if he died, and he would not argue against it.  

But then Heatwave jumped off the rock, and Boulder, and Blades, and ran toward him, and he could have wept if he were not so focused on driving and keeping his pain inside.  Why were they doing this? They needed to escape! They needed to--

“Optimus, come!” Heatwave roared.  “We’ll help you on!”

Optimus growled and accelerated with everything he had, spending his last reserves of energy to stay ahead of the ever-increasing blasts behind him.  He transformed and leapt toward the Bots, and they grabbed him as he landed-- his armor scraping the ground as he roughly fell-- and hauled him onto the rock.  He felt the hands of the ones he had tried to save saving him as the blast reached them and blew their platform up and out of the mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're wrapping up-- only about two more chapters to go. XD


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's explanation time. . .
> 
> At Burntuakrisp's request, I have made several changes to this chapter.

“Cybertron,” Chief Burns said. “You mentioned that when you told me about them.”

“Yes,” Optimus said. 

“Do you miss it?” Cody said quietly, to Boulder. “Cybertron?”

“Would you miss Earth?” Boulder said, just as quietly.

“Your planet,” Dani said cautiously. “It’s. . . it’s dead?”

“Yes,” Heatwave interjected. “We knew that. What we didn’t know was that it wasn’t enough.”

“Heatwave,” Blades said unhappily.

“It wasn’t enough,” Heatwave repeated savagely. “The war was bad enough on Cybertron, and now it’s here.”

Optimus had insisted on staying out of stasis, intent on explaining everything to the Bots and the Burns family. It had been a long four hours, but the bases were covered and Optimus had not passed into forced recharge from the pain, and so they went on.  
Kade raised his hand-- an unusual thing for Kade to do, but Boulder supposed that the sight of Optimus Prime so thoroughly covered in Energon and beaten had cowed the human’s impulsiveness a bit. “And those things. . . the robots that hurt Uncle Woodrow. . .”

“Decepticons,” Optimus said heavily. 

“When we left Cybertron, the Decepticons were an uprising,” Heatwave said angrily. “A small uprising that Optimus Prime and the Autobots were fighting. How did it go so wrong?”

“Yes,” Chase added. His optics were tired-- he and Chief Burns had spent the first hour after they escaped from the mountain taking Woodrow to a hospital. “Why did they come to Earth?”

Cody, sitting with Chief Burns, looked over at Boulder, perhaps wondering if he would put his own question in. Boulder did not. He had only one, and that one would wait.

Optimus ex-vented. “I do not know, exactly, why the war has followed us here. I never meant to involve you in a war that I should have ended aeons ago.”

The Prime looked down.

“It is my fault,” Optimus said quietly. “This, what happened at Griffin Rock, is my fault. And this is the war. When humans are harmed, it is the war and it is my fault. It is your place,” Optimus said firmly. “It is because I am Prime that I must face what I have allowed to happen.”

“You did allow it to happen,” Heatwave said, but Boulder could see his anger dimming. “You didn’t tell us that Decepticons were on Earth. We could have died. Woodrow could have died.”

Optimus closed his optics. “Yes.”

“You wanted to protect us,” Blades said. “But the war found us anyway.”

“We can’t escape it,” Chase said. 

“We shouldn’t want to escape it,” Heatwave said.

“We need to face it,” Boulder said.

“We can face it,” Heatwave said.

“Together, we can,” Chase said.

Optimus stared at them. 

“We can do this, Optimus,” Heatwave said firmly. “We’re Rescue Bots. And if there’s danger out there, we need to be able to know you’ll let us face it.”

Boulder sighed. “Optimus, I know we’re not as. . . experienced as your team. We spent what we thought was the entire war in stasis. But we’re Cybertronians. And we deserve to be told things.”

“I agree,” Optimus said, and he sat up, looking at them. “It is my fault that you were forced to face this, and I can only say. . . I can only say that I am sorry.”

Boulder swallowed his question. He couldn’t demand things of Optimus now. Heatwave could, perhaps, but when the Prime looked so horribly exhausted and yet determined to face everything they threw at him, Boulder’s resolve faded. 

“We can only move forward,” Chase said heavily. “If our team still wants us here, after. . . after what’s happened.”

“Yes,” Chief Burns said immediately.

“Yes,” Graham echoed.

“We’ll never not want you guys here,” Cody said. “No matter what.”

“If those-- those things, the Decepticons-- if they’re out there, we’ll need you here more than ever,” Kade mumbled.

Dani put her hand on Blades’ chassis, smiled up at him, and said, “We’ll always need you guys.”

Boulder felt a great swell of affection. 

“And-- and Optimus,” Heatwave said, his bravado stuttering and dying at its core, “we-- we-- I forgive you. For not telling us. I-- I understand why you chose to do that.”

“Heatwave--” Optimus said, looking lost.

“No,” Heatwave interrupted. “I forgive you. There’s no arguing, Prime.”

“Me, too,” Blades piped up, attempting to mimic Heatwave’s stubborn attitude.

“Me, too,” Chase said, not bothering to imitate it.

Boulder looked at him, lifted his head, and deliberately said, “Yes, Prime. Me, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter. . .


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue. . .

He clawed his way up from the wreckage of the mine-- broken, half-melted, leaking a pint of Energon with every foot he climbed, and with an aching loss in his spark that hurt far more than all the other damage.

His conjunx was gone. 

It took orns to climb out, and with his chronometer damaged, the time seemed to stretch and drag out as he inched his way up, racked with misery.  At first, he mourned. His optics had been removed in the reformatting, but that didn’t stop him from crying-- slowly, and then all at once, as he wept and felt the pain in his core grow greater with every second.

As he climbed higher, the sorrow turned to rage; and he screamed curses at the Autobots, at Primus, at his conjunx, and at himself, wishing and begging for another chance.

By the time he reached the top of the mountain, the rage and the pain were both gone, and all he felt was a cold, vicious need for revenge.  And he knew exactly how to get it.

He called for a groundbridge-- he could not have flown even if he had had the strength to transform, not with his wing missing.  Soundwave met him as he dragged himself through, listened to his raspy request to see Lord Megatron, and took him there-- the spymaster supporting him as he limped and dripped Energon, leaving a bright, glowing trail behind him.

___________________________________________

 

“Rescue Bots,” he gritted out to Megatron, spitting static and wobbling on his pedes.  Soundwave stood next to him. “Four non-combatant bots. They survived the eradication during the war.”

“Four non-combatant bots did this?” Megatron said, looking him over.  “Killed all the miners and the other guard?”

Hot rage pulsed against his spark.  “N-no, my Lord. The Prime was there as well.”

“Hmm,” Megatron said, and his optics narrowed.  “We will have to do something about this. As for you, visit the medibay.”

He stood upright, resisting Soundwave’s servo.  “Lord Megatron, I am dying already.” He pulled his hand away from his chest and displayed his destroyed spark chamber.  Clamping his servo back, he continued, “The other guard was-- was my conjunx endura.” He glanced at Soundwave. The spymaster had agreed to keep their secret, but what did it matter now?  “I have no reason to try and prolong my life. All I wish is that you will _ destroy _ the Rescue Bots so that I can enter the Allspark peacefully. . . knowing my conjunx has been avenged.”

Megatron gave him an appraising glance.  “What is your name?”

“4J--”

“No,” Megatron interrupted.  “I know you give yourselves organic names.  What do you call yourself?”

He closed his optics.  “I am Joe, Lord Megatron.”  

Kelly had suggested his name.

Kelly, who was dead.

“Hmm,” Megatron said.  “This is war, and mecha die every day.  I cannot pretend to care very much that another Vehicon has passed into the Allspark, but I will tell you this:  The Rescue Bots will be dealt with.”

Joe nodded.  There were a thousand things he could say--  _ it has been an honor serving you.  Decepticons forever. Till all are one.   _ But he kept his vocalizer silent and removed his servo from his spark.

He could feel the swirling ball begin to shrink, his life force begin to fade away.  He gave a shaking vent, watching the glowing ball leave his body.  _ Kelly,  _ he thought,  _ I will see you soon. _

He was dimly aware of his body hitting the ground, and then nothing-- as he faded away into an eternal whiteness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this, I pass the mantle of Rescue Prime. XD


End file.
